


Unbearable Silence

by vlredreign



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon, Episode Related, Gap Filler, Points of View, Romance, Season/Series 02, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-26
Updated: 2006-01-26
Packaged: 2018-12-26 18:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12064542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vlredreign/pseuds/vlredreign
Summary: It's time to choose.  But what happens if the choice is more than you can bear?





	Unbearable Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

  
Author's notes: This story is based on a scene in episode 220 of Queer As Folk, season two. POV from first Brian, then Justin.

Not mine, just playing. Although, Iâ€™d lay claim to Brian Kinney any day.

Thanks to knightmare, for the beta.

* * *

**Brian’s POV**

 

I heard the turning of the lock echo throughout the loft. I lay still, silent, at once relieved that he’d returned, and at the same time pissed that he’d done so. Who the fuck did he think he was playing with? Doesn’t he know who I am? I’m Brian Fucking Kinney, and I wait for no one. They wait for me.

 

What complete and utter bullshit. And if I tell myself that enough, I might actually believe it.

 

The fiddler did this. Him and his fucking violin and his fucking “let me love you like Brian won’t, Justin” and his big fucking brown war orphan eyes. When I saw him, I could see what Justin saw in him. That soulful starving artist thing. Of course that would appeal to Justin, because wasn’t he one, too? He just happened to glom onto Justin when he was at his most vulnerable.

 

In other words, I’d fucked up again.

 

But not before Sunshine broke his own fucking rules.

 

The rules, as they were, were simple. No fucking the same guy twice, no bringing the tricks home, be home by three am, and no kissing on the mouth except with each other.

 

That’s the one he broke. 

 

Now, I could understand how that happened, and I could even forgive it. It was at Daphne’s party. Justin stumbled upon a little virgin and popped his cherry for him. Then, so as not to be a heartless fucker like me, he kissed the kid. Almost the same way that I’d kissed him our first time together. 

 

The reason I couldn’t quite forgive it was because it was his idea. He set that rule. I’d agreed to it, because I liked the idea of having that part all to myself, something that was just Sunshine and me, something that was ours and ours alone. 

 

I think that was when it started to fall apart. I could see the cracks forming, but, like with everything else, I figured that I could plaster them with a fuck. Worked before. But then I screwed up. 

 

Everyone kept yammering away at me about Justin’s birthday, and did I get him a present? Hell no. Birthdays suck. I don’t do birthdays, or Christmas, or any of that shit. I get dragged into it, sure. But no, Deb and the munchers just kept at it, and finally I figured, fuck it. So I got him a present. One that I thought he’d like. I bought him a hustler. 

 

What’s wrong with that? I would have loved it if someone bought me that! 

 

Yeah, okay. That might not have been a wise move on my part. Justin really is the sentimental type, a cards and flowers type of guy. And yes, I knew that, but I wasn’t about to compromise my principles just to make his little ass happy.

 

It would have been such an easy thing to do.

 

Michael told me about the fiddler. I could almost see the devil dancing on his shoulder as he did, too. I thought that they were getting along better, especially with working on the comic. But Michael has always had a “thing” where Justin is concerned. I know he saw it as usurping his position in my life, but, when it came to my sex life, Michael had no say in it. He just never figured that out, I guess. He just kept on, though.

 

_Don’t you wonder what he’s doing when he’s not with you?_

 

I blew Michael off, not wanting him to see the hurt on my face. The way that my pulse began to race, thinking that Michael may be right. Thinking that, for once in my life, I wasn’t enough for someone.

 

He started coming home and practically running for the shower every time. Of course I knew why. To get the smell of the violin off and out of him before coming to me. But I took care of that, and quite spectacularly, I might add.

 

A few nights ago, he came in, and pleaded off to head for the shower. But I caught him. He tried to get away before I could figure it out, but not this time. 

 

_I like the smell of you…not soap,_ I told him. I held him close to me, traced the shape of his face with my thumb. He stared at me with those big baby blues, fear and confusion fighting with love and desire. I pulled him into me, and proceeded to kiss the taste of Ethan out of his mouth. I devoured him with kiss after bruising kiss, almost losing myself in it. I loved kissing Justin. His mouth was made for it, cherry red bee-stung lips. Quick to smile, to laugh, to pout. I’d never seen lips like that on anyone, and they were mine, goddammit. Mine. I took him down to the floor, and, slapping his hands away, unfastened and unzipped his jeans. And then it hit. The smell of the fucking fiddler wafted up at me. I couldn’t take it anymore. That hurt more than anything. The smell of another on my Sunshine, another that I hadn’t approved of. This wasn’t some nameless, faceless trick; this was a threat. I kissed him once more to rattle his cage, then pulled back.

 

_Brian…? Why did you stop?_ he asked me, shaking with his need.

 

I leaned in close to his ear. _Go take a shower_ , I hissed. _You stink._

~@~

I don’t know what to do, what to say. I can hear him making his way to the bedroom. I open my eyes to look at him as he stands there, as if undecided. Then, he begins to undress. Left in his underwear, he pads silently to the bed. I hold the covers back for him, and wait for him to get settled. I cover him up, leaving my arm draped over his shoulder.

 

God, Justin, can’t you feel it? You’re so fucking perceptive about everything else, you can see what no one else can, can’t you see? Can’t you see how fucking scared I am? Of losing you and not being able to tell you? Those three little words that you want me to say, the ones that are guaranteed to blow up in your face? Can’t you see that once I tell you that, admit that, I expose myself to everything? I can’t do it, Sunshine, I just can’t. I’ve spent too long building these walls around myself to protect myself. If I don’t love, then I can’t get hurt. 

 

Like I do now. 

 

Make up your mind, Justin. Do it before I do it for you.  
 **Justin’s POV**

 

I can’t do this anymore. It hurts too much.

 

Sneaking around, stealing time with Ethan when I can…and now, Brian knows. He knows.

 

And he doesn’t give a shit.

 

He told me to choose. Doesn’t he know how fucking hard that is? All he had to was give me a sign. Any sign that he wanted me to stay. That he wanted me.

 

After the bashing, he was perfect. He cared, and I could feel it. In every word, every gesture, every touch, kiss, caress…

 

And then it fell apart. Part of it was definitely my fault. I broke the trust. But he broke my heart. First. Like he always does. 

 

He overheard some asshole say that the great Brian Kinney had been domesticated. The one thing that he feared above all else. To be viewed as off the market. A kept man. _In a relationship._

 

So fucking what? What’s left when you’ve fucked every good looking guy in town, and out of it? What’s left to prove? Considering his age, and, this is something that I’d never tell him, you would think that he’d remember that song, the one about how it’s better to burn out than it is to rust. Go out in a blaze of glory. 

 

But no. Oh, no. Not Brian Kinney. He wants to die young and beautiful, like Cobain.

 

Cobain put a fucking gun in his mouth because he couldn’t handle it. What does that say? That’s not beautiful. To use Brian’s pet phrase, it’s fucking pathetic.

 

Beautiful men come and go. But Brian can’t see that. His ego has been stroked for so long, he believes his own press. Pretty sad for an ad exec.

 

Ethan said that he knew why I was with Brian. _He’s beautiful_ , he said to me. 

 

Of course he is. But that’s not why I’m with him. Brian is like a drug to me. He’s pure animal magnetism, drawing everyone and everything in, and giving nothing in return but a great fuck and a “see you later”. But not me. Oh, he tried. God knows he tried to get rid of me. But I wouldn’t go. Because I was in love, and I was convinced that he loved me, too. Right from that first night. It wasn’t just that I was a virgin and he was my first. Something happened that night. I don’t know if it was just seeing each other that first time, or the fact that Gus was born that same night…I don’t know. All I know is, from what everyone else has told me, that I got in. Somehow, I got in.

 

I know when I fell in love with him. It was that long, slow lick down the middle of my back. And cemented when he told me that no matter who I was with, he’d always be there.

 

Because he was first.

 

But it’s not enough. Not anymore.

 

I need to be loved. I need to know that I am, I need to hear it. I don’t think that that’s too much to ask. 

 

Brian does. When I told him that Ethan loved me in ways that he couldn’t, he told me that it was in ways that he wouldn’t. I saw the pain in his eyes when he said that.

 

I wonder if he saw the pain in mine. I wonder if he cared. 

 

Ethan said that he was tired of waiting for the night that I could stay. To go back to Brian. And so, here I am.

 

The loft is dark, silent. It’s never this quiet.

 

I make my way up the platform and past the partitions. 

 

He’s awake. Looking at me. Wondering, I suppose. Perhaps wondering why I’m back. What caused me to come back.

 

I don’t know myself.

~@~

I start to undress, toeing off my Nikes, shrugging out of my jacket and shirt. Drop my jeans and socks at the foot of the bed-

 

He pulls the covers back. As if inviting me inside. I hesitate, then climb in. He covers me, draping an arm over me. I don’t move, can’t move. I don’t know what to do. I can feel him there, a question in his eyes. I wonder if he’s thinking about what he said the first night he brought me here.

 

_So, are you coming, or going?….Or coming, and then going…or coming, and then staying?_

 

I stayed that first night. And here I am, again. As uncertain as I was then. All I knew was that I wanted him. And I still do. But I want more. Yeah, maybe I’m young, but I know what I want. And I want him. I want him to choose me.

 

But he won’t.

 

I wonder, when he pushes me off his cliff, if I’ll scream on the way down.

 

The silence is unbearable.

 

_~fin~_


End file.
